Friday September 5th 2025 "Have YOU ever fallen victim to scammers? Easy mistake isn't it !!!"

Yes, friends, have YOU ever fallen victim to a scammer? It's so easy to do, especially if the scammer is both silver-tongued, and a hopeless romantic at the same time, as this story in the local Onion News for East Hampshire this morning makes abundantly clear, to put it mildly!

What a swine! And let's hope local police can catch this guy and move him from "in bars" to "behind bars", where he so obviously belongs (!). He'll certainly get some "close companionship" there,  although opportunities for "candlelit dinners" and "new adventures" may be somewhat limited, or so my spies tell me (!). [It isn't actually a crime, Colin - just saying!]

The story of the Middle Wallop Scammer, however, brings a bit of a quietish chuckle to the mouths of me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois this morning, however, and here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, it enlivens our walk in the sunshine over nearby Old Man Lowsley's Farm considerably, which is nice!

me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois this morning, walking over

nearby Old Man Lowsley's Farm and listening to the lovely birdsong

And we can't help feeling a bit sorry for Middle Wallop's many "single white females". Because, with the town's so-called "scammer in chief" now being pilloried in the local press, these poor women's search for a "friendship and possibly more" must go on, sadly!

Little did Lois and I know, however, that we were about to have our own first brush with a bunch of scammers, who ring our doorbell soon after we get back from our walk. They offer to use "smart chemicals" to kill off all the weeds on our driveway and generally "seal it" and "spruce it up" (no pun intended!!!), because they were doing the house across the street today, the one belonging to Rachel. Weeding our driveway is just one more job Lois and I "haven't got round to", and something certainly needs to be done about it one of these days, that's for sure!

Fast forward to later today - I showcase some of the

weeds on our driveway, weeds that have become the target

of some local scammers - oh dear!

Luckily, however,  I thought to check with Rachel over the road, where they are supposedly doing a similar job today, and she says she has never heard of them, so we politely refuse their offer. Plus I tell the scammers that I'll just check also with our immediate next-door neighbours Sarah and Olly, mentioning that they are both police officers working for Surrey Police, over the county line in Guildford, and surprise surprise those "driveway weed specialists" seem suddenly anxious to get in their car and speed away. 

I wonder why!

The next surprise is a visit from two officers from our local Hampshire Police, come to check that we are "okay" - another neighbour had noticed these "weed specialist" guys going around from door to door in the neighbourhood, and acting suspiciously, so he had called the police earlier. 

Officer Steve tells Lois and me that we would be classed as "vulnerable" due to our advanced age (!) - 79 this year, 80 next year, we confirm - you do the maths haha!!! And later he emails us with the county police's guide for old codgers. "The Little Book of Big Scams" , whether it's scams on the doorstep, on the phone, or on the internet, and how to keep safe, which is nice.

 

So, although it's a bit of a shock for Lois and me to realise we're "vulnerable" - we thought that was for the really old people, you know the type, I'm sure - there's a lot of them about!

But at the same time, "Kudos, Hampshire Constabulary!" Aren't our policemen-and-women wonderful!

They have a serious, and sometimes dangerous job to do, so it's nice that they get their occasional "lighter moments", at least according to a tip-off from another Steve, our American brother-in-law, who passes on to us this snippet, reported here on the Metro news website:

Lois and I didn't realise that this isn't the first such case that the police service has had to deal with. 

According to Metro, a similar prank took place during an FA Cup match between Wolves and Liverpool, which was interrupted by 'porn noises' for almost 15 minutes back in January 2023. The BBC had been forced to apologise for the intermittent interruptions, and presenter Gary Lineker revealed afterwards that the noises had come from a small mobile phone hidden in the studio.

flashback to January 2023: "sex noises" during BBC

coverage of an FA cup tie between Wolves and Liverpool

And the signer-woman (above, left) doing the simultaneous sign language for the dear and hard of hearing, seems unsure about how exactly to "sign" the sex-noises - and Lois and I don't blame her, poor woman !!!!

Is there a criminal mastermind behind both pranks? And if so, who is this "Mister Big" who's committing these dastardly crimes, including possibly the most serious threat to Parliament since the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. I think we should be told, don't you!!!

21:00 Policemen are allowed to be funny, at times, and Lois and I finally get to relax today, watching the trials and tribulations of diminutive Bedford policeman Paul Jessop and his chaotic family, which is nice.

In this week's episode policeman Paul. played by Jim Howick, has inadvertently damaged his hot-water bottle.

Poor Paul !!!!!

Paul's wife Rachel, who hates it when Paul calls it his "hot-bot", doesn't want an electric blanket either, because "that's what old people do", you know, like liking 1980's heart-throb ballad-singer, Michael Ball, and that kind of thing!

Oh dear, poor Rachel !!!!

By coincidence Lois and I "powered up" our electric blanket this last week, with the suddenly cooler September temperatures. It comes on in the afternoons for "nap time" and then again in the evenings for that lovely "toasty" feeling at 10 o'clock.

Talking of which, will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!! 

Thursday September 4th 2025 "Are YOU planning to win the lottery this week? Well, don't bother! Local man Frank's scooping the lot apparently!"

We've all done it - been so confident of a weekend lottery win that we start to spend a little too freely in advance - after all, what harm can it do: that's what people say in these parts!

Local man Frank Cantrell is a case in point, and his face was "all over" page 94 of the East Hampshire Onion News this morning - just turn to page 94, if you can bear take your hands from over your eyes, that is !!!!

Poor Mrs Cantrell !!!!! 

But, at the same time,  fingers crossed for Mrs Cantrell's "old man" this weekend - he's going to be a bit red-faced going into work on Monday morning if his hunch is wrong - that's for sure!!!

Having a lottery win is a good boost to any local economy, and the story puts a chuckle on to the faces of me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois this morning as we take our daily walk, this time through nearby Radford Park, here in semi-leafy Liphook, not a million miles away from Frank Cantrell over there in lovely Betty Mundy's Bottom!

me and my light-to-moderate wife Lois this morning, chuckling over the

day's news in nearby Radford Park in semi-leafy rural Liphook, Hampshire

Lotteries are very much on our minds this morning, as it's a Thursday, and this afternoon we've got our fortnightly online meeting of our local U3A Intermediate Danish group, which we lead, "for our sins" (!). 

Lois and I log onto our laptop for another online meeting of the local U3A

Intermediate Danish Group, that we lead "for our sins" (!) 

Our little group is currently reading a Danish 'whodunnit' together - all about a Danish marriage-scammer, romance-scammer - call him what you will, known simply as "JH". And JH 'earns his crust' by tracking down single Danish women 'of a certain age' who've just won a fortune on the EU lottery, getting into their beds - and more importantly getting into their bank accounts. 

When he's emptied their accounts JH either murders them or just "moves on", onto another menopausal Danish multi-millionairess - as you do (!).

Danish romance-scammer "JH" (left) has got most of the duvet as usual (!),

and his poor menopausal victim Ursula has to hope for a "hot flush"

to come along, just to keep herself warm - what madness !!!! 

Luckily, local adman and amateur detective Dan is on the case, and in this afternoon's meeting our local Danish group reads how he's decided to recruit his big sister Bente (known as "Big Bente") to be JH's latest victim. To do that, he's got to persuade the EU Lottery "bigwigs" to send romance-scammer JH a email giving him Bente's name and address etc, together with the fake news that she's just won 10 million kroner - whatever that is in real money haha!!!

local adman and amateur detective Dan, played

by Peter Mygind in the TV series

"Big Bente", luckily also, is keen to get involved, somewhat surprisingly - she's divorced, needs the sex, and she's bored by her job as a local government officer, so what has she got to lose haha! 

Poor Bente !!!!!!  [It's only a story, Colin! - Ed]

So watch this space!  [I'm not holding my breath, given the snail's pace you group of "noggins" are getting through this book, Colin! - Ed]

19:00 Thoroughly exhausted by our afternoon keeping order amongst our fractious little online group (!), Lois and I more or less collapse onto the sofa after dinner. We decide to watch a film "The Imitation Game", all about World War II code-breaker Alan Turing, who in his determination to crack the Germans' Enigma coding machine, more or less invented the modern digital computer - and arguably Artificial Intelligence (AI) - along the way.

It's particularly interesting for me, because when I started my own government job in the same kind of work at a less exalted level, back in 1972, some of the characters in the film were still around, in the office, and rapidly approaching retirement by that time. Later in the decade I was in the same branch as Joan Clarke, who nearly became Turing's wife. She was his girlfriend, and liked him enough to want to marry him, even though she suspected (rightly) that he was gay. When I knew Joan in the 1970's, I knew she'd worked at Bletchley Park but I knew nothing about her relationship to Turing, which she never mentioned, naturally enough. 

In the film we see Joan, played by Keira Knightley, getting the news that she had passed the entrance test for work at the Government Codebreaking Centre at Bletchley Park.

It's a bit unsatisfying for Lois and me to watch the film, because the makers have obviously invented loads of dramatic encounters and incidents to give the story human interest and "spice it up", so that it seems more exciting than it probably was. If the viewer realises this, they then become unsure about what in the film actually happened and what didn't, which is a pity.

It's really well done, however, and highly watchable, but  I expect that, in reality, the breaking of the German codes was mostly just a load of hard work and sleepless nights. 

Summing up the war, Turing says in the film, "People talk about the war as this epic battle between civilisations, freedom versus tyranny, democracy versus Nazism, armies of millions bleeding into the grounds, fleets of ships weighing down the oceans, planes dropping bombs from the sky until they obliterated the sun itself.

"The war wasn't like that for us".

In Turing's low moments during the war, Joan was always there to comfort him.

Fascinating stuff, though, isn't it!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!